When Sharks Attack Robots

This spring a sea-gliding robot deployed by start-up Liquid Robotics to collect data in the Gulf of Mexico sent an alarming text message to its pilot ashore that something was wrong.

The pilot, who remotely guides the robot on its mission — in this case to collect data on water chemistry, current information, and acoustics for BP PLC — directed it to take underwater pictures of itself. The acoustic instrument had tangled up. It was time to return to port.

Once the robot was back on firm ground, the Liquid Robotics crew found the culprit. The underwater glider, which the robot uses to propel itself under water without the use of any fuel, had bite marks on it. “It was attacked by a shark with about a 12 to 14-inch size bite from the shape of the tooth marks on the gliders fins,” said Bill Vass, the company’s new CEO, who hails from years in the computer industry as a high level executive at Sun Microsystems.

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